


a sun shines (in the dark forest)

by theapplekeeper (Deunan)



Series: Writerverse [19]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Folklore, Inspired by Poetry, Lullabies, Rebuttal: The Faerie Queen's Reply, Short, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 17:19:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4928401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deunan/pseuds/theapplekeeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of short fic with a creature from the forest and a boy that it takes.</p>
<p> <br/>    <b>a sun shines (in the dark forest):</b>  <br/>They had left him in the forest. Left him. In the forest. In the forest that was Me.<br/>     <b>o’er mountain (crows and crones lie together):</b> <br/>“Was he,” the child asked, “was he a trick of the forest?”<br/>     <b>o forest childe (you have much to learn):</b>  <br/>I would not keep him from his own, so when he asked, I let him go. O Childe, yes, I let him go. [warning: bad poetry]<br/>     <b>a seed (will sprout or rot):</b><br/>"But what if I lose it," he had asked. "Then it is lost and you are lost and I am lost as well," I had said, o so long ago. <br/>    <b>in the dark (we smell your fear):</b><br/>He is leading one home. Why is he leading one home?</p>
            </blockquote>





	a sun shines (in the dark forest)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ Community Writerverse and their Challenge #14: October BINGO of Doom! (word prompts & horizontal BINGO: Sunshine, Over the Mountain, Missing You, Every Morning, Are You Afraid of the Dark?)
> 
> In hindsight, I realize that this is series of short fics close to several poems with a Faerie Queen (Rebuttal: The Faerie Queen's Reply (poem: http://tam-lin.org/transformative/lawrence.html) and The Queen's Rebuke (song: https://youtu.be/QpltQ5S4xxc). So... inspired by that. Yeah. Only there's a kid as one of the Faerie Queen's loves.

**_ a sun shines (in the forest dark) _ **

He could not travel as I, bound as he was to human flesh, but I could take him, could fold him in and eat him up and make him less of him and more of me. 

“Tickles,” he had said, soft and quiet, a coo into new-formed neck, a breath of warmth and awe.

They would want him back – how could they not? – but they would not have him. They had left him in the forest. Left him. In the forest. In the forest that was Me.

“Yes,” I had said, “tickles,” and bound him tighter to my soul. We went faster and farther and away from all that had claimed him before he had claimed me.

He had been so very small. So very lost. So very young. Too young; he would not know, would not have been told, would not think to fear a smile. And he had been so very bright, a solar body with planetary weight, pulling and dragging and drowning out the call of everything else.

It had been inescapable. I had not thought to try.

 

**  
**_o’er mountain (crows and crones lie together)_**

Once, a long time ago, a human mother had pleaded, had begged and bargained and cried that there was nothing wrong with her child. Nothing wyrd or wild. Had said to elders that he was hers, hers, hers and not some forest trick. 

They had not believed her, but they had been moved and so gave her time, time to see and sense and grieve and rage as they have seen others do when lies could not overcome truth.

But she did not. She did not see him as anything but her own, her child, her son, her babe won from bloody birth. And in the end, the elders had to take him, take him and keep him and guard him as if he was their own.

But then the mother died and they need not keep him so they had not. 

Such were the tales I told him.

“Was he,” the child asked as he shifted restless beneath a webbing of skin and feather I had made, of me, for him, “was he a trick of the forest?”

“No,” I had said, “he was no trick.”

He was small and young and still so very bright. “And, was he, of the forest?”

“No,” I had said, “but he could be.”

And he had smiled up with starlit eyes, smiled and smiled and smiled until slumber took his hand and lead him through ancient towering monoliths and lands filed with magic.

 

**  
**_o forest childe (you have much to learn)_**

I would not keep him from his own, so when he asked, I let him go.

I did not want to let him go, so he never went alone.  
Never went alone did he, not ever that I let him see,  
Let him see the fields and flower. (Fields and flowers that are me.)  
Me and I and him and you, you have much to learn O Childe;  
Much to learn, O Childe, much to learn O Childe Mine, much to learn O Child.

In boughs high and branches low  
In web and root, in ebb and flow  
I am Me and We are All  
Ever bound in earth in thrall  
Ever bound in earthen thrall  
I am Me and We are All  
In webbed root, in ebbed flow  
In branches high and boughs low

When My Love asked to go, I could not keep him for my own.

Much to learn O Childe, much to learn O Child Mine, O Forest Childe  
Me and I and him and you, there is much to learn O Childe,

Can you see the fields and flower, fields and flowers beyond our bower?  
Never alone walked he, not ever would I let him be,

So when he asked to be let go, I could not keep him as My Own.

I would not keep him from his own, so when he asked, I let him go.

I let him go, O Forest Childe, oh yeah, I let him go.

 

**  
**_a seed (will sprout or rot)_**

In his bag lay a pinecone, small and dark and irreplaceable. 

At the edge of our forest he checked for it, pushed cloth and skin and color-stripped pulp aside in a frantic search. A string round his neck would be too noticeable and his pants, he had decided, were untrustworthy. He could not walk with it in his shoe or his sock. He could not keep it in his hair or his shirt. So in his bag it had gone and every morning, every morning, he worried over it and for it and because of it, this seed that I had given him.

“But what if I lose it,” he had asked, solemn and still, his hands a careful nest when I had given the seed a new home.

“Then it is lost and you are lost and I am lost as well,” these are the words I had said to him, o so long ago.

“But can you find us again?”

“I do not know.”

And for many mornings he had not gone, stifled will and wind and curiosity. 

“If I lose it, I’ll find it.” He said at last. “I’ll it and I’ll find you.”

And so a tradition was born. At the edge of our forest he checked for it, every morning before he left for school he worried over it and for it and because of it, this seed that I had given him. 

 

**  
**_in the dark (we smell your fear)_**

_We live in a little house in a little clearing in the forest,_ are the words I overhear. Sun-warm paths worn to my heart, I know this one as well as it knows me.

_The forest?_ Human fear, it takes the sounds and jiggles them, stinks them up and marks them for claws to tare and rip and rend.

_Yes._ Proud is he, proud and sure and sovereign. He is leading one home.

Why he is leading one home?

_But, but nothing good lives in this forest._

_Mother-world lives here_. Sudden, true, and absolute; this argument and point. Mother-world lives in this forest. Nothing good lives here.


End file.
